Hello, beautiful people! Welcome to a new review! For this review, I get into Home is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose. I had read one of her books before, The Perfect Husband, and enjoyed it, so I was excited to check out another of her books. I definitely didn’t hate Home is Where the Bodies Are at all, but I don’t think I liked it better than The Perfect Husband. I think that one was just a bit stronger overall. Let’s get into what I liked and didn’t like about Home is Where the Bodies Are.
Main Characters:
Beth Thomas: The eldest of the Thomas children and the only one to stay home and take care of their mother in her old age, after their mother’s passing, the siblings are brought back together and discover secrets that shake their family to its core
Nicole Thomas: The middle of the Thomas children and the black sheep in the family due to her personal struggle with drugs and what comes with that, after their mother’s passing, is forced to look at herself and choices and what role her childhood home played in them
Michael Thomas: The youngest and most successful of the Thomas children, seems uncomfortable and frankly over his mother’s passing and wants to get back to his new life, doesn’t want to face the things he dealt with in his home growing up
Laura Thomas: The children’s mother, who’s passing, brings her children back together for the first time in a long time, takes secrets to her grave, but leaves clues for her children to discover the truth in their childhood home and what went on within it
Brain Thomas: An absentee father to the Thomas children, and eventually went missing many years later, the children don’t know where he is, and frankly, don’t care due to the way he abandoned them
My Review
As I mentioned before, I haven’t checked out a ton of Jeneva Rose’s work, but so far, everything I have checked out has been enjoyable. In the very few books of hers that I have read, I wouldn’t place Home Is Where the Bodies Are as the top, but it really wasn’t a bad book overall. I think the downfalls me more so, came in the predictability of the book. It may have just been me, but I felt like I caught on fairly early to how the book was going to go and why it was going that way. Aside from that, though, I found the plot to be good and enjoyable to follow along with, and I did want to get to the end to find out if my guesses were right or not. I landed on giving it a 7/10 rating overall. I definitely want to check out more of her books and see how they compare or hold up to this one.
Home is Where the Bodies Are takes place in a slow, quiet town where Beth Thomas is taking care of her aging mother. When Laura Thomas passes, it brings her other two children, Michael and Nicole, who have been away from home for some time, back to the place where it all started. The three Thomas children couldn’t be more different. Beth is responsible, loyal, and a bit bossy. Nicole is the black sheep, long marked for her struggles with addiction and ability to lie her way out of problems. And lastly, Michael, the baby of the family, and most successful in his career endeavours, who hardly comes around to see his family with his new busy life. Michael is uncomfortable with being home, having a tough relationship with their father, who left the family many years ago without a trace, and a tough self-image; he would rather be done with things and get on with his life. Nicole is tired of the judgment and hurtful words and wants to get away from the people who make her feel the worst. Beth is the only one who took care of their mother and receives no recognition for all she has done; she wants her siblings and their egos out of her life. The Thomas siblings find themselves stuck in their childhood home; however, when one of the siblings pops in an hold home movie, and what’s on the tape is more than horrifying. In the video, they watch their bloodied father place a dead Emma Harper into a grave in their yard. Emma Harper, once a young teen in their town, goes missing, rocking the community. Never found and no clues to what happened to her, her father eventually kills himself, driving most who loved her out of the place that brought so many bad memories. Now left with this tape and no answers the Thomas children struggle to figure out what their father did, what role their mother played, and if there are any other dark secrets in the walls of their childhood home.
I enjoyed Home is Where the Bodies Are overall. The plot is super intriguing, and honestly? It gave me the creeps in the best way. The idea of digging through old family VHS tapes and stumbling across footage of your father burying a teenage girl? That’s straight-up nightmare fuel. I was hooked from the start, but also immediately thinking, “There has to be more to this.” At first, I wondered if their mom had played a bigger role, or if there were going to be multiple girls buried in that backyard. It turns out the story takes a different path, and while I didn’t hate where it went, I did find it a little tricky to stay fully surprised. The book has to lay some obvious clues to make the ending land, which makes certain twists feel a bit easy to predict.
That said, I found the characters interesting. I always love a story about siblings who are completely different from one another; it automatically adds a layer of tension and mystery. You’re constantly asking, Okay, but which one of you is hiding the biggest secret? They all have issues, but in such different ways that it keeps you guessing.
Beth stood out to me as a strong main character. Her anger and frustration felt so valid and relatable, though I might be biased as an eldest daughter myself. There’s something so real about the pressure that comes with that role, the responsibility, the emotional labour, the general lack of appreciation. I completely understood her resentment toward her siblings and why she comes off as so uptight. She didn’t ask to be the glue holding the mess together.
Nicole was compelling too, even if I didn’t entirely trust her. Not just because of her past with addiction, but because of the sneaky, manipulative way she inserts herself into things. She’s nosy and a little slippery, but not so much that I disliked her. Just enough to keep me on edge. Michael, I didn’t hate him right away, but he definitely gave off that condescending tech bro who thinks he’s above everyone else energy. He’s smug and disconnected, and while that doesn’t make him a murderer by default, it sure doesn’t help his case.
As for Laura and Brian, the parents, they were just kind of the worst. I get that everyone has their secrets, but leaving your children to unravel a decades-old murder mystery is beyond cruel. I softened to them a little by the end, especially after seeing how tangled and tragic things had become. But still, they made their choices, and their kids are the ones left to deal with the trauma. That’s not parenting; that’s emotional arson.
*** Don’t go any further if you don’t want to read any spoilers ***
The questions that come in the book is why did their dad kill Emma, why did their mom know about this and never say anything, and are there more bodies hidden in their childhood home.
Something that becomes important is finding their dad. Beth has had a few little bits of communication from him since he left their family, but there has never been much idea of where he is and why he ran away, until they watch the tape. The siblings can find different things around their home that their mother has written or left, which start to signal to them what happened.
While this is all going on, Michael is a mess. This made me super suspicious early on, especially because Emma was the same age as him. Beth often questions why her mother would take this to the grave, and it becomes fairly clear why this would be, because she wasn’t protecting her husband; she was protecting her son.
By the time Beth and Nicole piece things together, Michael is already paranoid and panicking. He tries to attack his sisters to hide the secrets, especially because they find out Emma isn’t the only one. Dealing with the guilt of covering up Michael’s crime, things get tense between Brian and Michael. Michael ends up killing him in what he claims was self-defence, but we see that his idea of self-defence is a little skewed.
The girls can beat Michael, and he goes off for his crimes. We find out it was he behind his dad’s emails all along, and he really died the day he left them. So, overall, not a bad ending, it just wasn’t like super exciting, probably because I saw it coming. I think there were a couple of angles this could have gone, and it was just kind of the obvious character who carried it out.
I hope you enjoyed this review. Thank you for checking it out! Feel free to subscribe to the page to be one of the first to know when I release a new review!
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